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Help for 'Noisy Fingers'?

03-03-2012, 08:15 AM

I have an ongoing struggle with 'noisy fingers', for want of a better term. When bending a string or doing a pull-off, I often--in fact, USUALLY--end up with loud scraping or similar sounds from adjacent strings.

Other than practicing the accuracy of my finger placement and fretting position, does anyone have any tips on how to combat this?

Comment

Once again "music is also what you dont play!" Sounds like the problem is your palm and finger mutes with your picking hand. For myself, the pick is only gripped with the thumb and forefinger and frees the other fingers to help the palm in muting when needed. I will even use the thumb to mute for some stuff. Good luck!

Comment

I suffered from this a lot. I read advice that said "just be aware of it, make sure you're hearing it and letting your fingers know. They will deal with it when they can" or something like that. It seemed to work....

I do think it also helps to know that players generally do all sorts of tricks,
like muting a neighboring string with a finger that is fretting, etc... and usually
these are subconscious. So let your subconscious find these solutions, maybe
giving it a nudge consciously from time to time. I was amazed the first time I
noticed that I was muting with a fretting finger

GaJ

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Comment

If your action is set up wrong for "your hand" this can be part of the problem. When you bend a string it should be in the center of your your finger tip. If it is too low your finger will also tend to grab the adjacent string. Too high and it will clip the adjacent string. Look where the string touches your finger tip and make any necessary adjustments.

Comment

I have an ongoing struggle with 'noisy fingers', for want of a better term. When bending a string or doing a pull-off, I often--in fact, USUALLY--end up with loud scraping or similar sounds from adjacent strings.

For pull-offs, I usually mute the next higher string with my index finger. I usually don't have to mute the next lower string any more than what I usually do (mute using the palm of the picking hand).

For bends, I use any finger on the fretting hand other than the one actually bending to mute the higher strings, and picking hand to mute the lower.

I find I get away with less attention to muting on my steel-string acoustic because the action is higher and I play it unplugged. The electric's action is lower, and I'm more likely to use OD or fuzz, so I have to put in separate practice time to make my phrasing as clean as I want. Sometimes though I think some "slop" is fine for the music; eg. punkier type stuff.

Comment

My problem is with bending. Generally strings get caught under the string I'm bending and when I release the bend you can hear the 'click' of the drop of other string.

Changing the action on your guitar can dramatically change this. Depending upon what bridge you have, changing the action can be one of the easiest things to do, definitely worth messing around with.

On the general "noisy fingers" thing, I noticed that I was working on a particular problem phrase just today. So I watched myself fixing it, and what I saw was that I just play the thing slightly slowly and watch. I mean: look at the fingers and become aware of what exactly is making the noise. Then I thought "what if I just bend this finger a bit more, so it touches that string"... tada, buzz gone. Sometimes it's "bend it more" to mute, other times it's "bend it more to clear".

It sounds silly and obvious, but I think just watching and making slight corrections is the way to go...

GaJ

Edit: I just noticed that beinding in particular was identified by the OP. Experimenting with action is definitely something to try. At one time I thought that good guitarists of course have low action. I had all sorts of trouble bending. Then a thread like this one opened my eyes that shredders might like low action, but higher action has a lot going for it... now my action is adjusted so that bent strings in bends are collected in the middle of my finger-pads. This is what another poster said, halfway down. Totally agree!

Comment

Changing the action on your guitar can dramatically change this. Depending upon what bridge you have, changing the action can be one of the easiest things to do, definitely worth messing around with.

On the general "noisy fingers" thing, I noticed that I was working on a particular problem phrase just today. So I watched myself fixing it, and what I saw was that I just play the thing slightly slowly and watch. I mean: look at the fingers and become aware of what exactly is making the noise. Then I thought "what if I just bend this finger a bit more, so it touches that string"... tada, buzz gone. Sometimes it's "bend it more" to mute, other times it's "bend it more to clear".

It sounds silly and obvious, but I think just watching and making slight corrections is the way to go...

GaJ

Edit: I just noticed that beinding in particular was identified by the OP. Experimenting with action is definitely something to try. At one time I thought that good guitarists of course have low action. I had all sorts of trouble bending. Then a thread like this one opened my eyes that shredders might like low action, but higher action has a lot going for it... now my action is adjusted so that bent strings in bends are collected in the middle of my finger-pads. This is what another poster said, halfway down. Totally agree!

Thanks GaJ. I've been delaying a trip to a guitar setup place for forever, but its about time I do something about it. I'll definitely mess with action prior to the setup fix though.